KATHMANDU: The Constituent Assembly Chairman today implicitly said that the country is set to miss the May 28 deadline to promulgate a new constitution “because the accepted procedures cannot be followed” with just 51 days left at hand. This means the 601-member House will either have to skip the steps outlined in the Assembly regulation or extend the timeline. “The political parties in the Assembly should take a decision at the earliest in view of the constraints,” Subas Nembang said. “I have drawn their attention in this regard time and again.” Even if the Constitutional Committee sits down to write the draft tomorrow it will need 30 days to compile the reports submitted by the 11 subjective committees, leaving another 20 days for the remaining procedures, he said. “That time frame is not enough.” The CA regulation lists several steps in the run-up to the promulgation of the constitution once the preliminary draft is ready. They include organising seminars and interactions on the first draft, collecting feedback from the people and organisations and incorporating them. Then, the final draft will have to be presented to the full House for clause-wise discussion and deliberation for a week, followed by approval of the constitution by a two-third majority. At the end, the CA Chairman will authenticate the constitution before submitting it to the President who will formally issue the country’s statute. The CA is meeting tomorrow without any business at hand with eight of the 11 subjective committees yet to submit their reports to the CC. CA member and Senior advocate Radheshyam Adhikari said that even if some steps are skipped it will be difficult to issue the constitution in the next 51 days as parties continue to hold divergent views on several fundamental issues. “Following the due process is a critical part, as the CA’s importance remains in its process. So skipping the steps makes no sense and if we do that the CA just becomes irrelevant,” Adhikari said. The best option is forging consensus on the debatable issues by May-28 and extending the deadline. “Unless the procedures agreed upon are followed, the people will not own up the constitution,” he said. “But, should the parties fail yet again to get the first draft ready even after renewing the timeline beyond May 28, there’s no point considering this option.”